Knights' Korner

Wall Ice Hockey: After starting the season perfect, Wall has been winless in their past five games. Dropping two out of three games this week, after winning the first one, has put the Knights in a skid. It will be interesting to see how they deal with a little bit of adversity after everything flowing so easily earlier in the season.

Wall beat helpless Freehold Boro 5-1 on Saturday to make it look like they were back on track, but Boro is 0-9, so maybe it gave them a false sense of everything being alright again because they blew a lead in the third period to lose to an over matched Monsignor Donovan 2-1 on Tuesday. The next day Wall were hosts to Cranford and Cranford did just about whatever they wanted to the stumbling Knights, winning 4-2, outshooting them 54-22. Senoir Troy Klahre deflected as many shots as he could but there’s only so much he could do.

On a lighter note, Klahre broke the 1,000 save career milestone, so congratulations to him on that. He probably would have preferred it to come on a night when he could have gotten a victory too, but it’s still a good night for him.

Wall Boys Basketball: Wall split their games this week, losing a tight one to Long branch 48-45, then beating Brick Memorial 49-39 taking them to 8-5 on the year.

The game against Long Branch was especially tough to swallow because the young squad lost it in the fourth quarter, being outscored by 10. Wall had no answers on defense for Long Branch’s leading scorer, who dropped 27 on the Knights. Sophomore Trent Mitchell against led the Knights in points, with 15. Sophomore Brenden Barcas poured in 8 to go along with 4 assists. Senior Kevin Waters had just two points.

They played much better down the stretch against Brick Memorial, outscoring them 17-6 in the final quarter. Mitchell had a game high 16 points while Barcas did a little bit of everything with 7 points, 5 assists and 5 rebounds. Barcas got all of his points from the charity stripe. Waters came a point short of a double-double, with 9 points and 10 rebounds.

Wall  Girls Basketball: The Lady Knights had a good week, taking their overall record to an impressive 9-5. They took care of business against lowly one-win Long Branch 62-45 with junior Sydney Darby leading the way with 20 points and 18 from senior Kelsey Thompson. The duo accounted for 38 of their 62 points that night.

Then Thursday, they put Brick Memorial away early outscoring them 23-8 in the opening 8 minutes. The final score was 64-50 Wall with Thompson and Darby again pacing the team. Thompson with 18, Darby with 14.

Wall Wrestling: Another good week for Wall wrestling, taking two convincing victories against Manalapan, 41-25, and Red Bank Regional 53-18. Denzel Tovar, Dan Kinsella, Brett Donner and Tyler Romanelli won both matches this week helping Wall taste victory twice.

Wall Swimming: Wall sophomore Danielle Griggs became Wall’s first consecutive Monmouth County Swim Champ, breaking the 100-freestyle county record and is a High School All-American. Things are looking extremely bright for the sophomore, with the possibility of becoming a state champion looming not just as a senior, but this year and next she has a good chance. Griggs is the real deal.